MULTIMEDIA

How Biased Is Your Baseball Announcer? Ken

The Wall Street Journal

The conventional wisdom in sports is that TV announcers should strive to call the game straight down the middle. It's a philosophy that's been embraced over the years by most of the famous baseball voices.

Harrelson has taken a decidedly different approach. He considers himself the biggest White Sox fan on the planet. It just so happens that he's paid to talk about them. He's known for begging long fly balls (Stretch! Stretch!) to soar over the fence and imploring the players for key hits. He even criticizes calls that don't go Chicago's way. In May, he went on a rant against umpire Mark Wegner, saying that he "knows nothing about the game of baseball." After that outburst went viral, he met with Commissioner Bud Selig and ultimately apologized.